The Xbox One’s eSRAM has continued to be in the news since before even the consoles release, but for all of the wrong reasons. It’s often attributed to the systems lower performance
“I don’t get this obsession with MS fanboys wanting the more powerful machine. Its not happening. Who cares. There are xbox fans who think esram is this mystical thing when all it is is cumbersome, bottlenecking memory. But its in there so it HAS to be special. When I hear people say devs need to just utilize esram better, its like saying they need to learn how to do the most basic thing again. Esram isn’t rocket science, it isn’t even complex. Its just a pain in the a**. That’s it,” said FamousMortimer.
The shortcomings of ESRAM have been discussed at length by numerous developers, gaming journalists and of course, by myself well. You can check out my in depth article here on ESRAM, if you want more of a lowdown how it effects resolution.
It’s far beyond a secret that the ESRAM of the Xbox One is the main culprit behind the lower resolution of Xbox One titles that are then rendering in 1080p on the PS4. Numerous games have the dubious honour of being on this list, including Tomb Raider, the yet to be released Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes, and many more.
There’s quite a bit of discussion regarding the resolution and differences on the same NeoGAF thread that Famous Mortimer spoke up in, so you will probably want to give that a look see.
Now, it hasn’t all been negative regarding the X1’s ESRAM, several developers have spoken up to say that it can be used in beneficial ways, but you would be hard pressed to find many such claims amongst all the claims that the ESRAM is “cumbersome” and holding back the Xbox One. Especially with the claims that the Xbox One may not even be able to render games such as Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare in full HD.
I have also covered this in a video, which you can see below, if you want more information.
