Xbox One Graphics – Native vs Windows 10 Streaming Screenshot Comparison: Compressed but Enjoyable

One of the most interesting features of the Xbox App on Windows 10 is the ability to stream Xbox One games directly to any device running the operating system, and on July 29th everyone with a legit copy of Windows 7 and Windows 8 will get a chance to try it.

Of course streaming to another device will always involve a certain degree of compression. Streaming uncompressed video would require a bandwidth that home networks simply don’t have available.

Luckily, both the Xbox One and the Xbox App give us the perfect tools to gauge what kind of compression is involved, as both platforms feature screenshot capture in lossless PNG.

[Neonridr]

The article talks about noticeable compression, but after reviewing the pictures, they don't look that different from each other. The colours seem to be slightly different when looking at the Windows 10 ones, but the detail looks pretty close.

Maybe it's just me, I dunno.

[Abriael]

You seriously can't see that the Windows 10 version is more blurry in the full resolution screenshots?

Not that it's a bad thing. You can't achieve this feature on any platform without compression, but it's quite visible even to the naked eye.

[Neonridr]

when they said compressed, I was thinking highly pixelated.

Like the Vita doing remote play with the PS4, obviously the graphics are going to take a hit, since the display can't show as good of graphics.

But take the Forza shot of the Porsche. Ok, so the windows in the background get a little blurry. But the model of the Porsche looks pretty good still, just that the red colour seems to be a little different. When they say big time noticeable, I was expecting a little more I guess.

[Abriael]

@Neonridr: naah, compression takes many forms. This is not the kind of compression that adds serious artifacting or adds pixelation.

It's the blurry kind (with a small loss in color depth too, but that's also a natural effect). As a matter of fact, you could say it kind of works as a natural antialiasing, at the price of detail.

Never said "big time noticeable" or anything to that effect by the way. It's "visible, but definitely not enough to be disturbing."

[tinynuggins]

I'm sure there's a difference but I certainly don't see it in those screenshots.

[Abriael]

@tinynuggins: click on the labels to see the 1080p version of each.

[andibandit]

Having look at the screenshots over and over again I think i finally noticed it in the Mass Effect dialogue screenshot, when I compare the text from each picture, but I find it really hard to see the difference otherwise.

[Neonridr]

@Abriael - yeah fair enough.

[Rookie_Monster]

Abraiel,

They look 99% similar to me. It might be your local network connection that might be an issue with some minor blurriness here as one that is a bit faster might make it virtually identical as I have already seen already from various previews. But keep up the good work and continue bringing us great xbox news.

[Abriael]

@Rookie_Monster: No. It's not my local network connection. They've been tested on cabled network, so it's the best possible scenario.

[donthate]

abrial:

You might not know this, but even on a wired connection it varies quite a bit. That is why you hear about people on wired connection still complaining.

Lots of time it is a crappy router, with crappy software bought on the cheap (and sometimes expensive ones).

Even the throughput from your internet connection can vary with routers.

[Abriael]

@donthate: Yeah. Don't worry. I don't have a crappy router, and there's nothing wrong with my equipment.

The PC stream is compressed simply because a feature like this can't exist without compression.

[Bigpappy]

It just seems brighter on the stream. Made be a monitor or graphics card setting.

[brich233]

They are blind, it looks even worse in motion. I tried it, and it looks like SHIT imo. People who cant see the difference are probably using thier phones.

[Oner]

Reminds me of the old term "Vaseline Filter" certain gamers used last gen when they could "absolutely visibly see" the differences between 360/PS3 multi-platform game even though they were MUCH closer in resolution. Something like 640p vs 636p or 600p vs 540p, whereas this gen it's switched and truly clearly obvious to the naked eye, but with a MUCH larger difference (to the tune of 50-100% or even higher pixel density resolutions)...funny how it works this gen.

[DevilOgreFish]

I think Streaming works best on smaller screens, the bigger the screen the more apparent the compression becomes. Steam's game streaming option works like the same way too.

[Christopher]

Yeah. I mean, they're slightly brighter, but not by much. It looks pretty darn good.

I think the biggest concern is stable FPS when streaming. But, if Valve can do it, so can MS.

[Abriael]

Didn't notice any noticeable drops on my end. Not in addition of the frame rate drops a game may already have on its own at least (for instance, Neverwinter's frame rate is horrible natively).

[Christopher]

I'm surprised Neverwinter hasn't fixed those issues by now. Thanks for the info on framerate.

[Abriael]

Yeah, me too. The funny thing is that they don't appear when you would expect them.

In a MMO you'd expect frame rate issues in a crowd. At times it just drops in the middle of nowhere, so I'm very inclined to blame bad coding/porting there.

[TheXgamerLive]

Their is a small difference in rez and color isn't as brilliant yet its very similar, enough so that nobody should complain.

And knowing XBOX/MS they'll continue to update and improve.

Remember when one device shows to another their never the same. In fact no 2 monitors are the same.

[lvl_headed_gmr]

You are spot on.

This is a typical opinion piece from Giuseppe who is a well known Sony supporter and tries to taint positive XB news with negative opinions while supporting negative PS news with positive opinions.

You can't notice anything while the game is running.

[Bigpappy]

You are correct in saying that scenario does exist. But I Abriael doesn't do that. He does try to highlight positive aspects of PS4 exclusive when others in the media focus on the negative (Drive Club). But he is fear.

[KTF26]

"but the detail looks pretty close"
check the setting of your screen
the blurriness is obvious
for me it's not a big deal if it works without noticeable lag or stuttering
but the compression really take a lot of the details

[3-4-5]

99% identical

[ChickeyCantor]

Color desaturation is probably due to compression.

[rainslacker]

Colors are likely to be different regardless of compression due to the difference between a TV signal and a monitor signal or a tablet signal, etc. Monitors tend to be more sharp with more distinct colors than TV's, but they also tend to have a bit more glare due to higher contrast than the image than you would get on a TV.

I think this would be a really hard thing to gauge unless you spent extensive time calibrating the two displays to display the same image as close as possible using some sort of neutral calibration tool.

[brich233]

Looks like shit when streaming, I tried it.

[assdan]

I mean, the compression looks pretty significant, but I'd expect that given what they're doing.

[ZhukNasimPog]

That's impressive

[BattleTorn]

Impressive would've been PC Streaming outperforming the native, imo

[Christopher]

That would be more impressive, there are levels of how impressive something is. Too bad it's also impossible.

[SuperStatePro]

How the hell would something that's being streamed outperform the source? That makes 0 sense, unless you're talking about some high-level post-processsing on the Win 10 machine...

[Cherchez La Ghost]

I see a slight difference in the colors also. But other than that, it's the same.

[Neixus]

No it's not, the image quality being worse on w10 is very noticeable.

It's probably easier for PC folks to see the difference, i would compare it going from 1920x1080p to 1600x900p.

Now let the disagrees from people without knowledge come in, even though Windows and Xbox both belongs to Microsoft :)

[Xbonewone32015]

You know this is going to work absolutely fantastic with MS software engineers involved.

Can't wait to try.

[dreadz74]

I have used this feature it is slightly compressed indeed. Around 90-95% remain intached in the stream probably closer to 90%..

[Perjoss]

People saying that its only the colours, seriously if you don't see that blur then its time to see an optician.

[paranoid1971]

they can't tell the difference between 720 - 900 - 1080p so how are they going to notice this /s

[TheBrit]

All I can say is when playing halo and blackflag etc, I am very impressed with how it looks and how well it works.

[DJustinUNCHAIND]

Are people really surprised by this?

People, we are talking about game streaming.

[JRobes]

IRL there is a very noticable difference. I have the XB1 and Win10 betas installed on my desktop and XB1 at home, and struggle to see fine details when I stream to my desktop compared to playing directly on the XB1. It doesn't stop me from doing it though, since I let my gf watch tv on the main living room screen while I stream to the bedroom.

[Christopher]

When you do video capture while streaming, does it capture the native XBO or the streamed version? If the latter, could you upload a video of it?

[BeefCurtains]

When you say "noticeable difference", is it distracting, or it's just that you can tell there's a difference?

I'm just curious cause I can't wait for this feature!

[Camo]

Thats really not bad at all barely any difference.

[Lon3wolf]

Nothing to worry about, although for some reason my scroll wheel stopped working while looking at the pics amazingly right on the DoA 5 pics too.

[MCTJim]

No real difference..negligible at best.

[massapeal79]

Not much of a different at all saddddd

[SuperStatePro]

Wtf? What's sad? Do you even understand the topic at hand?

[JamesBroski]

As long as the input lag is small I have no problem. This is a really cool feature.

[dreadz74]

The input lag is incredible this shocked me the most and will lots of gamers this fall..

[JamesBroski]

You mean it's really bad?

[Neixus]

@JamesBroski

Wow, you got disagrees because of people not knowing english.

[DDOS-DelDaemonicOSes]

This video shows how incredible the lag is... almost not perceptible.

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

[bradleejones]

So does this mean my PC is essentially an Xbox one now? (Sorry if that's a bit ignorant)

[BeefCurtains]

I wonder if it would ever be possible to stream my PC games through my X1 too?

[KilluaX3]

At 20fps maybe.

[BeefCurtains]

Why 20FPS? My PC is far more powerful than my X1, I would expect some degradation of graphics, but where did you pull out 20fps? Or just trolling?

[KilluaX3]

Or is Xbox One now a PC?

[dreadz74]

Naw it's both mouse keyboard support incoming#DX12#unified

[rainslacker]

Yep all you need is the Xbox attachment.:)

Actually, kind of a nostalgic...and off topic moment, but there was something way back when called the 3DO blaster. It was a PC add on card that fit into the motherboard of a PC, and allowed you to play 3DO games on the PC. At the time, it required a rather beefy 386 processor.:)

[bradleejones]

That sounds badass. I want one!

[rainslacker]

lol. I remember looking into getting one back in the day. The 3DO was like $700 on launch, and the 3DO blaster was like $500. However, you also needed a specific CD-ROM drive from phillips, which was about twice as much as all the other CD-ROM drives on the market. So it ended up being like $800 just to play 3DO games on your computer.

Being that it required at least a 386 computer, that means it only used the ISA slot of the computer, and computers don't come with those anymore, so it wouldn't even work in any computer past the first couple of pentiums when the ISA slot was finally retired. I don't even think you can get them for legacy purposes in any motherboard nowadays.

[kevnb]

as long as you have the network to support it it looks pretty close, thats a big if since many people are using wifi on a cable providers modem..

[gamer7804]

a little fuzzier but not bad, if i'm streaming to my tablet should look great. Can't wait to try it out.

[massapeal79]

You know what's the sad part is Microsoft praising this to be the next big thing sad no big difference at all with the graphic and anything else so sad sad sad sad sad

[kstuffs]

You mean advertising the feature in ads means the "next big thing"? Hmmm... I guess they should just say stream XB1 games to your PC.... oh wait that's exactly the ads. Show me where MS said it's the next big thing, or even implied? BC is a gimmick right?

[massapeal79]

I am a fan of all 3 system because i own all 3 I have a high end pc ps4 xbox one and a ps3 and I had a 360 but got rid of it collecting dust

[Locknuts]

I was thinking about buying a streaming box like a Shield. Hopefully this works as advertised because I bought an Xbox One. Well I swapped my PS4 for one anyway.

[kevnb]

as long as your home network can support it.

[Locknuts]

Should be ok. Just had cat6 laid all through my house and I have a pretty good router. Hopefully it works!