Tip: Get Ready for Xbox One X
- Paul Thurrott
- Oct 21, 2017
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14
Anyone who is purchasing an Xbox One will want to get up and running as quickly as possible on the first day. But the sheer size of the games you’ll need to download is an impediment. Fortunately, there’s a great solution.
The issue here is easily understood: The Xbox One X supports true 4K games. But since pre-4K games are already humongous—Battlefield 1 and Forza Motorsport 7, for example, each take up about 67 GB of storage on my Xbox One S—we can expect the titles that are enhanced for Xbox One X to be even bigger. And there is nothing more disappointing than buying expensive new hardware like the Xbox One X and then waiting long periods of time while games download.
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So the latest Xbox One Dashboard update, the Fall Update, includes two new features that will help mitigate this problem. And if you already have an Xbox One or Xbox One S and intend to switch to the Xbox One X, you can use these tools right now to get ready.
The basic premise here is that you can add an external USB 3.0 hard drive to your existing console, move any games you wish to use on the Xbox One X to that drive, and then, when available, pre-download those games’ 4K assets so that you can play in 4K on the new console.
Connect the new drive to the existing consoles
Once you acquire an external hard drive, connect it to your existing Xbox One/S console via an available USB port. If the console is on, you’ll be prompted to see whether you’d like to use this drive for media or for games and apps.
Choose “Format storage device” and (optionally) provide a name for the drive when prompted. You will also ask whether you’d like to install “things” (new games and apps) on the external drive by default. (What you choose here is up to you, of course. My intention is to move to the Xbox One X, so I chose to install new things on the external drive.)
Once you see a pop-up notification altering you that the external drive is now ready, open Settings and navigate to System > Storage. Here, you will see that your internal and external storage are both available.
Copy or move one game to the external hard drive
To copy or move a game from internal storage to the external HDD, select the internal drive under “Manage storage” on the right, and then select View contents from the pop-up menu that appears. This will provide you with a Games & Apps-type view in which you can select individual items and perform different actions on them. So highlight a game in the grid and then press the Menu button on your Xbox Controller and choose “Manage game” from the pop-up menu that appears.
The Manage screen appears.
Now, select the Move all (or Copy all) button and then choose Move (or Copy) from the notification that appears. The game will be moved (or copied) to the external hard drive. You can manually repeat this for each game or app you wish to move, of course.
Move multiple games to the new hard drive
If you will be copying or moving multiple games and apps, there is a better way. Or perhaps you wish to copy/move the entire contents of the drive to the new external HDD.
To do this, open Settings and navigate to System > Storage. Then, select the internal drive under “Manage storage” and choose “Transfer” from the pop-up menu that appears.
In this transfer screen, you can choose “Select all” and then “Copy selected” or “Move selected” to copy or move the selected items to the external drive. If you wish to pick which items will be copied or moved to the external drive, you can do that instead.
Backup key system settings to the new hard drive
You should also backup your key system settings to the new drive so that they are available to the Xbox One X when it arrives. To do so, navigate to Settings > System > Backup & transfer.
In the System Backup & transfer screen, select the “Back up my settings” button and then “Back up to device.” Select “Back up now” when you are prompted to back up your settings to the external HDD.
Upsize the games that are already Xbox One X Enhanced
Once you have the games and apps you want on the external HDD, you can prepare for Xbox One X further by downloading the 4K assets for those games that already support that functionality. To do so, navigate to Settings > System > Backup & transfer. In the the System Backup & transfer screen, enable the option “Download 4K game content.” Next, navigate to Settings > System > Updates and make sure the option “Keep my games & apps up to date” is enabled too.
Excited yet?
I’m prepping my own external HDD this weekend so that I can get up and running on Xbox One X as quickly as possible. But I’ll be exploring another content transfer option—network transfer—once the new console is publicly available.
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Conversation 14 comments
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Stooks
<blockquote><a href="#209356"><em>In reply to Paulinafrica:</em></a></blockquote><p>The games will download 4K game content if you use that option Paul talks about…</p><p><br></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">""Settings > System > Backup & transfer. In the the System Backup & transfer screen, enable the option “Download 4K game content.”"</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It will do this because it thinks you will be upgrading…but if you are not then don't turn on that option on because the S will not use the extra content as it only outputs to 1080p.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">All you will be doing is wasting disk space.</span></p>
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Stooks
<blockquote><a href="#209452"><em>In reply to BoItmanLives:</em></a></blockquote><p><br></p><p>The X runs a modified RX 580. Doing a search for RX 580 4k, in most games on Ultra it gets 30fps, some below some above. Drop that down to high or a mix of medium high and it jumps up to 50-60 on a PC.</p><p><br></p><p>Add that fact that developers can and do maximize console hardware because they know all of the users of a specific console model will have the same hardware, OS and drivers so they get way more efficiency over PC's. </p><p><br></p><p>John Carmack of ID has said that PC games get about 60% efficiency out of the hardware because of so many different hardware configurations, drivers, and OS'es. Where he said consoles get 95+% efficiency out of the hardware.</p>
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Stooks
<blockquote><a href="#209483"><em>In reply to BoItmanLives:</em></a></blockquote><p>Hate the game not the player Bolty.</p><p><br></p><p>PC Gamer, AndandTech, ExtremeTech, Digital Foundry and all others have said the Xbox One X GPU (NOT the Jagurar CPU) is equivalent to the RX 580. </p><p><br></p><p>In fact the GPU in the X has 40 CU's vs 36 on the RX 580 and a 384bit memory bus vs 256bit on the RX 580 and access to more GDDR5 memory than the RX580. The RX 580 is clocked slightly higher at 1256mhz vs 1172mhz.</p><p><br></p><p>The Xbox One X is faster in every aspect than the PS4 Pro, which as you say is 3x more than the Xbox One. Faster CPU, GPU, and 4 more gigs of RAM, and more memory bandwidth 326GBsec vs 218GBsec.</p><p><br></p><p>"just with slightly less embarrassing framerates."</p><p><br></p><p>Lol ummm….ok. 95% or more of console games are multi-plat and they will all be the best on the Xbox One X until a better console comes out.</p><p><br></p><p>You said the same garbage over at Neowin. If you don't like the Xbox why even post? I wont even read something I don't care about let alone comment on it.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p>
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Stooks
<p>I run all my games off an external SSD already, just faster in many ways. My migration will be to move the drive to the X and login.</p>
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Stooks
<blockquote><a href="#209453"><em>In reply to BoItmanLives:</em></a></blockquote><p>Jelly much or are you just naturally negative?</p><p><br></p><p>I have my S plugged into a 27inch 4K LG monitor. Right now games upscale. Most of the current games I am playing are on the list of games getting a X update. Any new games will have them as well. I bought on sale ($20) and have not played The Witcher 3 complete Edition with all DLC because it is getting a X update. My only experience with it will be at its best.</p><p><br></p><p>Console will boot up faster, games will load faster, games will have more and faster RAM. With that RAM I bet assets will load faster and more of them, so draw distance in games will be better. All old games will get 16x AF and never use dynamic resolution again. Graphics for enhanced games will get a 4x+ boost.</p><p><br></p><p>My son is getting one as well. Game on!!!!!!!!</p>