Gears of War: E-Day Uses Xbox Series S SSD as Extra RAM
The Coalition co-developed a memory-saving system with Xbox's Advanced Technology Group that offloads idle data to the Series S NVMe SSD, Digital Foundry reports.
The Coalition has revealed a memory-saving technique for Gears of War: E-Day on Xbox Series S that offloads data to the console's NVMe SSD storage so it can function as a second tier of RAM, according to Digital Foundry.
The system was co-developed with Xbox's Advanced Technology Group. It uses advanced heuristics to analyse access patterns, keeping frequently used data in RAM and moving idle data to the SSD. Trading a couple of gigabytes of SSD storage yields roughly a gigabyte of usable system memory.
The Coalition also upgraded its engine technology for gore and dismemberment during E-Day development.
The Xbox Series S ships with 10GB of GDDR6 RAM, which is limited compared to the Xbox Series X. The Coalition felt fans were getting desensitised to the violence in Gears, prompting the engine improvements.
Gears of War: E-Day is coming to PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.
Quick answers
What platforms is Gears of War: E-Day coming to?
The game is coming to PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.
How does the memory-saving technique work on Xbox Series S?
It offloads idle data to the console's NVMe SSD, keeping frequently used data in RAM and moving idle data to the SSD, so the SSD acts as a second tier of RAM.