As many people, this generation I switched to Playstation and never bougt an Xbox, now is a good time to get aboard, picking up the new console tomorrow. I do own PS4 Pro, but I plan to get a 4K TV sometimes next year. I played Shadow of War and I did notice there was an upgrade in the store, labeled for use on 4K TVs, but I got it anyway and it improved cutscene quality very noticebly on my HD tv. My question is, as Gears of War 4 is the first game I'll play on the new console, is it worth it to download the higher resolution textures, even though I plan to play in "performance mode", the 60fps one? I know the resolution of a pre-rendered cutscenes and actual ingame textures are a different thing, so that's why I ask. Internet bandwidth and HDD space are non-issue for me, I play a game or two at any given time and have no cap on my internet.

Why not? Jeff Snakalar said you can choose 60fps or more definition, so just try out both. It's gonna look real good either way. And btw, be sure to check out that horde mode in Gears 4...very fun, and all the maps are free.

The higher resolutions are aimed at people running at 4k. Since you're not doing that, it's unlikely you're going to notice any difference and so it's unlikely to be worth the time or space, even if that's not an issue.

So, I have had an Xbox One X for a while. It looks like it super samples, 4k to 1080p. So, Forza 7 with regular textures on both PC and Xbox look great. I have a high end pc and the quality is comparable between the two.

So, you're saying a 1080p player would not have to download the 4K texture packs in order to see the benefits at 1080p?

Also, with an Xbox One X, can I choose not to download the 4K assets if I'm trying to manage storage space/data usage?

@inevpatoria said:

You wouldn't have to but it would look better if you did.

And yes, all the 4K packs are optional downloads.

From what I’ve read the Xbox one X will always download the 4K assets and not give you the choice. I may be mistaken though because I can’t find where I saw that.

@inevpatoria: Yes and Yes. I forget where the setting is but it is disabled by default (4k texture download). That podcast with the marketing manager "Albert Penello" explains it at some point but I don't think mentions that it is off by default.

@rickyyo: @vierastalo: Awesome, thanks gang.

Thanks everyone, I think I'll just download it to get every little extra bit out of it, I guess a supersampled texture will still benefit from higher resolution source file.

And yes, as mentioned by others, the option for 4K asset download should be on the system level, somwhere in the Xbox OS.

Yes do it the textures can be a bit muddy on Xbox so it would still benefit you, the game looked much sharper with PC textures even at 1080.

UPDATE: So I have my One X connected and there is no option to opt out from the X specific updates as far as I can tell, it just pulls everything even on HD TV setup. If I understand this correctly, they only added the option to One and One S so you can download the files and transfer them once you upgrade your hardware. This topic is by this effectively rendered pointless, because it does make a difference so they push it as a mandatory update (unless you go offline), which is fine by me.

@quipido: So I also just discovered this, and it kind of sucks. My gadgetitis knows no bounds, but I haven't gotten a 4K TV yet due to waiting for smaller OLEDs to be available. I instead just told the system to not keep my games up to date, to at least avoid it downloading 400gb worth of stuff for games I won't play for months.