Sudden Strike 4 Runs @ Native 4K on Xbox One X, “Pretty Much Identical” To Ultra PC; Dev Weighs on VRR

Alessio Palumbo
Xbox One

The real-time World War II-themed strategy game Sudden Strike 4 launched in August 2017 for PC and PlayStation 4, with Chris calling it a sound tactical game with a great depth of units and tactical options.

Sudden Strike 4 is now scheduled to launch on the Xbox One on May 25th, and we've reached out to Project Manager Attila Söröss from Budapest-based studio Kite Games with a few questions on the technical side of this port.

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According to the press release, Sudden Strike 4 on Xbox One X will be delivered in "stunning 4K". Does that mean native 4K (2160p)? Also, are you using dynamic or fixed resolution?

Sudden Strike 4: European Battlefields Edition runs in native 4K (2160p) on Xbox One X. It is a fixed resolution, there is no dynamic scaling.

Can you confirm the frame rate target? Also, will there be different modes to choose from (such as High Resolution, Performance, or Enriched Visuals) as in other Xbox One X games?

The frame rate target is 30 fps on both Xbox One X, S and base models. There won’t be different modes to choose from on X.

How would you compare Sudden Strike 4 on the Xbox One X with the game running at max settings on PC in terms of quality, and what kind of hardware would be needed on PC to reproduce the same results seen on Xbox One X?

Sudden Strike 4 European Battlefields Edition on Xbox One X is pretty much identical to PC max settings with a few tweaks. When it comes to high resolution, the bottleneck is always the GPU. You would need a Radeon RX 580 or a Geforce GTX 1070 to run Sudden Strike 4 with max settings in 4K on PC. In terms of CPU and memory requirements, you should be fine with our recommended specs, even in 4K.

The game runs at 1080p and between 45/60 frames per second on PlayStation 4 Pro. That's a huge difference with Xbox One X that we don't quite see in every game. Do you believe it's due to your own technology or there's just that much of a gap in horsepower between the two consoles?

The biggest gap in horsepower comes in GPU performance both between PS4 and PS4 Pro, and Xbox One and Xbox One X. This means that for a title without enhancements, performance improvements are most noticeable in places that are GPU limited. The PS4 Pro version of Sudden Strike 4 was shipped without enhancements, so it is identical to the base PS4 version in terms of resolution, assets and features. The Xbox One X version will be enhanced from the get-go to support native 4K.

Microsoft recently introduced Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) technology for Xbox One consoles. On paper, it's a great addition to improve smoothness, but usually VRR is most useful well above 30fps and most console games are locked to 30fps. How much of a game changer do you think it could be?

Variable Refresh Rate capable displays and support for them are indeed a great addition to gaming technology, especially if a game cannot guarantee a rock solid 30 or 60 fps frame rate, and ends up somewhere in between. Most solutions including the one introduced for Xbox One requires a FreeSync capable display, which is currently mostly supported in monitors, rather than TVs. I think that how much of a game changer it could be in console gaming depends on how widely this technology will be supported in TVs in the near future.

Thank you for your time.

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