Bringing the 8K Future of Gaming to the Present
2021-09-12
2021-09-12
The Current Impact of the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X.
Imagine sitting in your living room, smiling like the Cheshire Cat as you open up your new latest and greatest gaming console. You set it up. You grab the controller and struggle to contain the excitement of the loading screen. Beeps and boops ring out. Pixel blocks roam the screen as the title flashes across your very eyes.
This same experience, starting from the very first consoles, leading to the present, has brought joy to many households around the world. But in the last few years, development has slowed and advancements have been minor.
That is, until the latest offerings from Sony and Microsoft, hit the market at the end of last year.
The Sony PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X Enter the Arena
One of the special technological wonders that these new gaming consoles bring is known as Variable Refresh Rate technology (VRR for short). This amazing feature has been around for a while, being available in desktop gaming utilising NVIDIA’s G-Sync or AMD’s FreeSync. It is fantastic that Sony and Microsoft have been able to include it in their latest consoles and that it works in the latest TCL televisions (selected models).
Variable refresh rate technology disables the FPS (frames per second) lock that was common in previous generations of consoles (usually capped at 60 FPS). Instead, VRR allows the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X to continually change the FPS on the fly.
The primary benefit that this has is that it eliminates stutters and tearing during your gaming experience, making gameplay smoother by keeping the refresh rates in sync with the variable frame rate of the video game. This means that shooters and action games will feel smoother and snappier. Cinematics will be more epic and engaging. Overall, it’s the cherry on top of the gaming console cake.
What’s that, you ask? Yes – the new consoles bring something else to the table too!
The Peak of Image Quality – 8K Resolution & the Future
The PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X now include top-of-the-line solid-state drives (SSDs) and powerful graphic processing units (GPUs or graphics cards) that support ray tracing, as well as supporting up to 8K resolutions.
Let’s back up here and explain why you should be excited.
SSDs make long loading screens where you go make a drink, have a snack break and wash the dishes and then come back to gaming, a thing of the past. The new state-of-the-art graphics allow these gaming consoles to render graphics to almost photo-realistic levels with ray tracing.
Being able to support up to 8K screen resolutions makes these new consoles insanely powerful and future-proofed in terms of your gaming experience. You simply need a suitable gaming TV that can support up to 8K resolution.
8K resolution is nearing the limit of what the human retina can perceive, meaning there is tremendous potential in the future for games to explore graphical territories that would mimic real-life. Lifelike virtual reality without the sickening jauntiness will become possible. Reflections, refractions, and shadows will become such high quality that you’ll feel like you’re playing through a movie captured by the world’s most powerful cinema cameras.
A confluence of technology is happening in front of our very eyes. 8K resolution is the slam dunk that these gaming consoles needed to solidify their place in the future.
Which current games use VRR and 8K resolution the best as of June 2021?
Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla has become a visually-outstanding benchmark for showing off the benefits of variable refresh rates and 8K resolutions. If you want to go one step further and see how ray-tracing can take your graphical experience to the next level, check out Control: Ultimate Edition.
Ghosts of Tsushima, a PlayStation 5 exclusive, is an artistic masterpiece that throws you into a remarkably beautiful world that utilises these technologies to enhance the artist’s touch that went into crafting it.
To be fair, Gears of War 5, an Xbox Series X exclusive, also takes the gore and action soaring past the bar set by previous generations. Throwing yourself into the action in all of its 8K splendor is something to behold.
How to best reap the rewards of these new 8K technologies?
New offerings from TCL bring 8K-ready televisions perfect for gaming to your very fingertips.
These new 8K resolution panels unlock the wonders of the technologies present in the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. They can also upscale previous generations of games, adding detail and clarity to games not even built for the 8K future.
TCL 8K televisions are equipped with an outstanding 33-million pixels. This is 4 times the total amount of pixels you'd find in your 4K TV displays and 16 times the number of pixels of a standard 1080P (Full HD) television.
To reap the benefits of VRR and 8K resolution, all you need to do is make sure you equip yourself with an 8K TV.
The future is here.
Playing games in 8K with a variable refresh rate is an exceptional experience that games developers of the past could only dream of! Now, it’s a reality that is even reaching the peak of human perception.
It is truly an exciting time to be a gamer, and as more developers create games that can take advantage of these amazing technologies, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X are going to become staples in every household that appreciates the fun and entertainment that games can bring.
Check out the TCL 8K television range to see how you can unlock your own 8K gaming experience.
2021-09-12
