While it’s common knowledge that the PS4 has more horsepower than the Xbox One, Microsoft isn’t content with being labeled as “underpowered.” In the build-up to the next-gen launch and beyond, Microsoft is actually increasing the amount of processing power that developers have to work with. We’ve already seen increases in CPU clock speed, but it turns out that Microsoft is actually willing to give up some of the OS-dedicated resources down the road. Frankly, it seems that Redmond just can’t stop changing its mind in the run-up to the Xbox One.

Microsoft’s Andrew Goossen sat down with Eurogamer, and went into detail about the 10% of dedicated graphics resources currently being withheld from game developers. While he calls the 10% of reserved resources “conservative,” many consumers and developers would prefer that those resources were used to make better games. The Kinect and “snap mode” both use this 10% slice, and that epitomizes the distaste some people are currently feeling towards the Xbox One. It’s quite clear that the Xbox One was designed from the ground up to serve as a multimedia machine, and that has soured the console in the minds of many vocal critics and “core gamers” on the internet.

However, it seems that nothing is set in stone for the Xbox One. Goossen goes on to explain that while the 10% of reserved GPU power is there to keep things running smoothly at launch, it doesn’t have to stay that way forever. In fact, he goes out of his way to explain that Microsoft intends to give developers access to some of that reserved processing power eventually.

While the exact implementation details are scarce, Goossen does namecheck a handful of GPU hardware features that will help the engineering team free up some processing power for developers. Specifically, he names asynchronous compute queues and concurrent render pipes as being vital in keeping the OS from inhibiting game performance. “The two render pipes can allow the hardware to render title content at high priority while concurrently rendering system content at low priority,” Goossen says. “The GPU hardware scheduler is designed to [maximize] throughput and automatically fills ‘holes’ in the high-priority processing.”

As Redmond optimizes the Xbox One’s operating system to take advantage of these AMD GPU features, more resources will be freed up. Then, developers will actually be given access to a bigger chunk of the GPU. Games always start looking better after developers become more familiar with the specifics of console hardware, but it sounds like that will be accelerated in this generation. By the time the 2014 or 2015 holiday seasons roll around, we could be looking at shockingly prettier games on the Xbox One — maybe even games that look as good as the PS4.

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